Short-distance runner gets set for Beijing test

 Short-distance runner Nguyen Thi Huyen will leave for Beijing, China, on August 21 to compete in the Women's 400m hurdles at the 2015 IAAF World Athletics Championships.

The 22-year-old girl from Nam Dinh province is the only Vietnamese athlete to show at the event.

"Huyen hasn't fully recovered from a knee injury. So she has to both train and take care of her injury, but I hope she will have a great result in China," said coach Vu Ngoc Loi.

Huyen is the second Vietnamese runner to compete at a world athletics tournament.

In 2011, Truong Thanh Hang was the first Vietnamese to compete in the event but she failed to make it to the final in the women's 800m event.

According to Loi, Huyen had an outstanding performance in the 400m event at the recent 2015 Asian Grand Prix series in Thailand where she took two gold medals. However, Huyen won't compete in this category in China.

"We want Huyen to invest in doing well in one key event rather than many," Loi explained.

She continued her star performance at the 28th Southeast Asian Games in Singapore in June, winning two individual and one team gold medals for Vietnam, which secured her a berth at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games in Brazil.

She won the women's 400m hurdles final with a best time of 56.15 seconds, breaking the 20-year Games' record of 56.78 set by Thailand's Srithoa Reawadee.

She also dashed to the top in the women's 400m event, clocking a final time of 52.00, which smashed the Games record and met 2016 Olympic standards for this event.

The IAAF tournament will be the largest sporting event to take place at the Beijing National Stadium since the 2008 Summer Olympics.

The competition will start on August 22 and will attract some 2,000 athletes from over 200 countries and territories.-VNA